Page 16 - March April 2006

after cutting a slit with a saw in the direction the wires need to travel, they can just be pushed out of sight below the surface with a pair of pointed pliers. They may even be glued in if you wish. They travel up through short pieces of plastic water pipe in the scenery to a small control panel on each board.
Another thing about foam baseboards is that, should you want a grade, all you need to do is mark out the right-of-way and, a suitable distance away, cut right through the foam vertically with a bread knife or similar. Then all you need to do is push the cut piece gently upwards until a satisfactory level is reached and then glue it with PVA glue – piece of cake!
Being a small layout I didn’t want it to be covered with massive buildings so, having bought three DPM plastic kits some time back, I set about reducing them in order to make more but smaller buildings. Out of three kits I made seven buildings. As I could hide most of the backs, I used Plastikard as the backs of these so, together with a couple of second-hand small shops also cut in half, I have made the nucleus of my small town, which I have called Owl’s Creek.
I have written a separate history of Owl’s Creek starting in 1849. Over the years the valley with the name of Owl’s Creek has changed, having been corrupted on the way from the original Al’s
Book review by ‘Reader’
Creek, named by the locals after Big Al, a chap named Aluisious Beardsley, who stood 6' 5" in his socks, and who was the original first settler in the valley.
Back to the construction: the switch motors have been connected to push-button switches on the panels, together with a diagram of their positions. Hopefully this will make it easy for strangers to work. In our little group, as part of our friendly manner, we try to get the punters ‘to have a go, at driving our trains’ in the hope that they may catch the model railroad virus.
Now, with DCC, we will even be able to control the kids from real speeding and perhaps teach them to run trains in a more suitable manner.
Anyway, I have really enjoyed building this layout as it really did present certain challenges, most of which I managed to cope with. In all it is turning out to be a quite satisfactory effort, at least in my view (not finished by half, but recognisable as a layout), and I hope that others might think likewise.
So far the cost is still less than £100 (excluding the Digitrax Zephyr), having bought second-hand track, switches and motors, and raided the spares box.
So life doesn’t have to be too expensive or too taxing either, does it?
RIO GRANDE – chasing the rails. By Robert W Richardson
ISBN 0911581-53-7
Published 2002 by Heimberger House. At your hobbyshop now!! Just when it seems that all that can be written and all that is photogenic has been recorded on the Colorado narrow gauge systems, a new book appears that brings a whole volume of new material to the enthusiast’s armchair.
I recently read a copy of this book and found that it is really one that cannot be put down until the last page. Author Richardson first came to Alamosa as part-owner of the first motel in that town in 1949. As a service to his railfan guests he produced a news sheet, ‘Narrow Gauge News’. He opened the short-lived ‘Narrow Gauge Museum’ in Alamosa in 1953. In 1958 he sold his share of the motel and, joining with Cornelius Hauck, formed the Colorado Railroad Museum at Golden.
During his 40 years in Alamosa he came to intimately know the staff and infrastructure of the D&RGW narrow gauge system. He took many previously unpublished photographs that illustrate
this book, and he became familiar with the politics that eventually led to the abandonment of the system. His conversations with
railroaders give an interesting insight into the daily life of the narrow gauge worker.
His anecdotes raise smiles all the way through this most interesting book. The reader will find no long lists of equipment numbering and dating here, but there is sufficient such infor- mation to provide a detailed background to certain specific items.
One item settled a question that I have often asked and never had a satisfactory answer to: Why were many narrow gauge tank cars lettered ‘Gramps’? There is no such oil company in Colorado or anywhere else as far as I am aware. It seems that the small oil fields around Chama and Farmington were owned by a veteran oilman named ‘Grandad’ Lafayette Hughes. In 1930 Hughes’ Company purchased its own tank cars and a name was deemed necessary: ‘Gramps’ was that name.
Good photographs, interesting text, easy reading. What more can you ask? Go for it!
1 ROUNDHOUSE